'Italian Schindler' wartime record questioned

Giovanni Palatucci has long been praised as an "Italian Schindler",
venerated for saving thousands of Jews from the Nazis before paying the
ultimate price for his bravery in a German concentration camp.

Giovanni Palatucci who has long been praised as an "Italian Schindler"

But the US Holocaust Memorial Museum is now removing him from its exhibits while other leading Jewish institutions and the Vatican are reviewing their recognition for his actions after new research indicated he was actually a zealous Nazi collaborator.

The wartime police official in the Italian city of Fiume has been honoured for helping 5,000 Jews avoid deportation, earning him comparisons to Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who protected Jewish workers and their families.

Champions of Palatucci, who later died in Dachau, are campaigning for him to be made a saint for his reported heroics and have denounced the new claims.

But scholars working with an Italian Jewish research group in New York have identified what they call the "myth" of his role during the Second World War after studying Italian and German records from the time.

The Centro Primo Levi at the Centre for Jewish Studies concluded that Palatucci cooperated with German forces in the round-up of Jews to be sent to Auschwitz.

His supposed actions were invented by his family after the war and eagerly accepted by the Italian state and Catholic Church as they sought to rehabilitate their reputations, they believe.

Mr Palatucci did indeed die at Dachau, but he was sent there after falling out with the Nazis in an unrelated dispute, not for protecting Jews, according to the Centre's research.

"There is an enormous contrast between the reality of what happened in Fiume during the war and the legend of Giovanni Palatucci," Natalia Indrime, the centre's director, told The Daily Telegraph.

Alexander Stille, a Columbia University journalism professor from an Italian Jewish family who has reviewed the centre's investigation, said Palatucci was the beneficiary of a "much-needed feel-good story in Italy after the war".

Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, also said it was examining the findings. The institution named him "Righteous Among the Nations", one of the highest honours for non-Jews, in 1990.

A Vatican source told The Daily Telegraph that Palatucci's possible beatification and canonisation was now under review by a historian appointed by the Holy See. He has previously been designated a martyr for his good works.

"Clearly if these recent claims turn out to be true, that would certainly put a chill on any beatification process," he said.

The percentage of Jews deported from Fiume was among the highest in Italy and that Palutucci was considered a model fascist by his contemporaries, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Rolando Balugani, vice president of the Giovanni Palatucci Association, expressed his "indignation" at the new research.

He said Palatucci's reputation had been "wrongly sullied" by false accusations. "The report took no account of the dozens of witness statements made by Jews who said they were saved by Palatucci." He vehemently denied that Palatucci was a "zealous and willing" fascist, saying that been arrested by the SS on suspicion of "contacts with the enemy".

"In fact Palatucci, who was also a patriot, was trying, in conjunction with the Allies, to ensure that Fiume remained Italian after the war," he insisted.